


It's Just Violence

by Pistol



Category: The Losers (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Gen, Space Marines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:07:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22041673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pistol/pseuds/Pistol
Summary: Around Carla people start falling, and no one is getting up.
Kudos: 12





	It's Just Violence

**Author's Note:**

> For Kate and Lady K who loved the idea of space marines and ladies as much as I did.

Story inspired by a [post](http://katemonkeyville.tumblr.com/post/25385893571/ladykrysis-aliceinlesboland-avatar-now) from about a month ago on Tumblr that inspired my casting of Lady!Losers as Space Marines and then, you know, this.

For reference:  
  


The Alvarez house is not a home, so much as it is a battlefield. 

Home is a cold place, with windows looking out into the void of space and where meals are eaten alone. A place where the hum of the engines mixes with the sounds of resentment, forming an ever-present soundtrack.

There's enough noise already so Carla stays quiet, stays out of the way when she can, and waits.

\----

"Joining up is a big decision. You sure about this?" the recruiter asks her. 

He sits across from her, reading over her file and acting like they haven't lived on the same deck of the same ship for her entire life. He's pretending like the only infraction on her file wasn't from when he caught her in the armory after hours, like her parents’ fights aren't as loud as they are notorious, like he can't imagine why a nice young girl would want to move out of her own room and into cramped barracks on the military deck. 

Carla shrugs, playing along with the lie. "I'll do my best."

\----

They're less brother and sister and more countries locked into a cold war.

Their hate is potent enough to draw blood and occasionally it even draws security's involvement.  
Somewhere else, like on a ravaged and forgotten colony that hadn't seen a supply ship in decades, it could perhaps be seen as a brutal form of love. But the Alvarez's don't live in a forgotten colony. They live on a quiet deck on a mining ship where there's always a roof over their heads and food in the pantry. 

So it's never about love. 

It's about leverage, gloating rights, and sometimes it’s because they hate each other too much to let anyone else hurt the other person.

"What did you expect dressing like that?" Jorge hisses at her when she comes home with a busted lip and a ripped shirt.

Carla snarls under the guise of a cocky smile.

He sneers back, spitting out a single word, "_Piruja._" 

Later that week they both happen to be in the living room when the ship's news is being read over the coms. Both of them pretend they have no idea about the identity of the person that was seen skirting the edges of the cameras in the area Carla's date was found.

\----

The recruiter looks her over with a hint of sympathy hidden behind bored eyes. "Your scores look good and you passed your physical. Welcome to the Colonial Marines, Alvarez."

\----

On Earth women can see combat, but women in deep space don't get to be in the first waves of transport. They're kept in the ships as auxiliary support until the ground crews clear the area. This means next to nothing when bullets start flying. Bullets, unlike the Colonial Marines, are rather progressive in that they don't care if you stand or sit when you piss.

Around Carla people start falling, and no one is getting up. To her left, there's a rifle laying next to a growing puddle of blood. It's an M110 or an SR-25, she isn't sure which, but she knows it's a better bet than her shitty M4 carbine with its sticky release that she's been carrying around for the last year.

Taking a deep breath she breaks cover to grab the rifle. She uses her M4's butt to forcibly remove what remains of the busted scope and flips up the front sight with steady hands. 

She can do this. It's just violence.

She peeks out quickly from behind the cargo crate she's been using as cover. Taking a deep breath she rolls the bolt back before slamming it forward.

It's just like hitting paper targets with her dad's ancient Lee-Enfield. 

Okay, maybe it's not. After all, the paper targets in the armory's range didn't try to shot back at her.

She doesn't keep a count and she doesn't let herself care about anything but leading the running colonists who are butchering the rest of her unit.

When there's no more ammo she steels herself before darting over to the body that had been clutching the rifle. She drags it behind cover and systematically loots its extra magazines. There's bile in her throat that she forces herself to swallow down when she jams her hands in his pockets. She pulls out three loose rounds from his right pocket, still damp from when his bladder voided, and tries not to look too long at his eyes as they stare up sightlessly at the sky.

\----

There are seven of them left on the third day, and no-one has shuttled down since the double suns had set the first night. 

Since then, Carla has mastered new skill sets she never knew existed. She can search a filthy body for water, ammo, and useful supplies one-handed in less than a minute. She can search the body of someone she recognizes in less than two minutes with steady hands. She has gained new organizational skills as well - any loose 5.56 from chamber checks of abandoned weapons goes in her left pants pocket, 7.62 NATO goes in the right, .45 ACP goes in her left breast pocket, anything else goes in the right breast pocket. She's learned to stop collecting dog tags because the space in her pack and pockets is needed for ammo and supplies, and there's enough weight on her shoulders without literally or figuratively carrying the names of the dead around her neck. 

She doesn't taste the bile anymore.

"They probably just went for backup," a lieutenant whispers next to her in a shaky voice. "They didn't know that the colony had been compromised and they weren't prepared for the numbers. They'll be back," he insists. 

The others murmur quiet agreements that no one really believes.

Carla focuses on the perimeter and tries to make herself remember how to hope. 

\----

A shuttle comes on the seventh day. It screams past her, engines whining as it heads towards the settlement. After a while there's a sound that sounds like thunder, but isn't. The wind picks up around noon, and it brings her the smell of smoke.

\----

Carla watches from the tree that's become _hers_ in the last two days as a group of four in full ATMO armor pick their way through the foliage to stand in a loose circle around her tree. 

"It's safe," calls the leader in a tinny voice. "They're all dead, now."

Carla stays where she is. She's been out of any useful ammo for almost thirteen hours but she can't bring herself to release her hold on her rifle.

There's a weary sigh as the leader switches their rifle to one hand before fussing with the edges of their helmet. There's a snap and a _whoosh_ and a tired-looking woman with messy brown hair tinged with grey is squinting up at Carla. There's nothing maternal or soft in her gaze, but it makes Carla relax none the less.

"You hurt, Marine?"

Carla shakes her head, the rest of her body still not moving an inch.

"Well, I'm gonna need you to get outta that tree if you want a ride off this shithole."

Carla stares at her, tracing the crowsfeet around her eyes and the lines on her face and the set of her shoulders before starting to climb down the tree. 

\----

They're all women, and they're nothing like the Marines Carla's ever worked with. Their leader, the messy haired woman with the bright orange star cluster on her shoulder displaying her rank of Lt. Col doesn't bother with pleasantries until the shuttle door closes behind them.

"We came as soon as we got the signal," she leans back against the wall, bracing as the shuttle switches from natural gravity to artificial. "Do you need medical attention?"

"No."

She gets a steady look directed at her ankle, the same ankle she landed on funny two days ago, but the Lt Col shrugs. "If you change your mind, let us know. We don't have a medic but we have Roque."

"Which is like a med bot, but with less compassion," the woman sitting across from Carla says in a stage whisper. "And, you know, less medical knowledge. She thinks every injury can be solved with derma-glue and glaring at the wound." She leans forward, extending a hand, "Jasmine Jensen, but call me Jenny."

Carla accepts the hand, trying to remember the right amount of pressure to give and how many pumps of the hand is considered normal. It takes a while for her to realize she's been sitting there, shaking and squeezing Jenny's hand far too tight for far too long because Jenny is still talking like there's nothing wrong.

Carla lets go and Jenny continues to talk. She tells Carla about Pooch, who _can drive anything, I mean anything, I've seen that fucker drive everything from a golf cart to a class six colony seeding ship_. She complains more about Roque's bedside manner, about how Clay needs therapy and the love of a good woman - or at least a scarred one with a poor bedside manner, which earns her a glare from Roque and Clay, and about how Jenny gets no respect for her many valuable skills, until Roque's hand wraps firmly over her mouth.

"She does that," Roque says that the same way Carla has heard ship engineers say _the rat population is growing_.

\----

The ship they meet up with is nothing like anything Carla has ever been stationed on. At best, it could be considered a prime example of ingenuity; at worst, it could be called a ugly piece-of-shit Frankenstein-esque monstrosity.

"We don't get a lot of funding out in this sector, so we've learned to make do," Pooch runs a weary hand over her scalp, looking torn between pride and embarrassment. 

"I like her," Jenny chirps as she climbs out of her ATMO gear, "she's plucky."

"She's a floating death trap," Roque says with a faint hint of fondness.

"A _plucky_ death trap," Jenny amends.

"Can it, ladies," Clay barks as she pries off her boots. "We need to see if Joe can get us in contact with the main fleet before we drift into the dead zone and I'm sure there are several terabytes of paperwork they'll want to inflict upon us."

\----

Joe does in fact manage to get them a channel to the main fleet, only to pull Carla away from the vid conference halfway though.

"Doctor's orders," he says by way of explanation.

"You're a nurse," Jenny points out with a scowl, "and how come she gets to skip this boring bulls-"

"Jenny," Roque growls. "This is a live com. They can _hear_ you."

"And she needs a decon at the very least after what she's been through," Clay says with steel in her voice.

Joe gives Carla a wide smile, tugging gently on Carla's arm until she follows him out the door and to what Joe introduces as their med bay. It's a fairly generous description of what appears to be a cargo hold filled up with a few cots, totes, and mechanical looking odds and ends.

"I know this ship doesn't look like much, and I suggest you don't look at any manufactured dates on the equipment or parts for your own mental well being, but everything on this ship works just as well as the stuff you'll see in the main fleet. Pooch and Jenny make sure of it." Joe offers her another smile, hopeful this time as he motions to the nearest cot.

Carla hops up, holding out her wrist for scanning. The scanner Joe produces almost reminds her of the scanners in old movies, except for the exposed back panel and the mess of red and black wires attaching it to what appears to be a e-book reader. Joe waves it over her chip, and the machine plays a cheery electronic sound before Cougar's medical charts are pulled up on the e-book reader's screen.

"Pooch rigged this up for me last year," Joe says fondly as he glances of the information. "Didn't have it in the budget to get the new scanner models they rolled out last year."

"It's … impressive," Carla offers weakly.

Joe snorts, "It's an ugly mess, but it gets the job done at a fraction of the cost. Now lay back, I need to get some fluids in you before I take a look at your leg."

\----

The ship, fleet name the _Odyssey_ but colloquially known as the _Oddity_ has a skeleton crew of less than one-hundred-fifty personnel.

"We make do," Clay says proudly as she gives Carla the tour. "Unfortunately we're the only real line of defense and support for twenty colonies and five mining ships. We're alone out here, no matter what BS the main fleet wants to say. The nearest military ship is two months out which is why it took us so long to get to you when your ship set off its emergency beacon."

"Thank you," Carla says without thinking. "For coming for us- me."

Clay shrugs, "It's what we do." She stops walking, turning to face Carla in the dimly lit hallways. "We can get you back to the main fleet if you want. It wouldn't be as quick as you'd like, but we'd get you there if you wanted too."

Unsure of what to say Carla nods.

"But I took the liberty of having Jenny do some digging, well," Clay pulls a face, "she started it on her own, but I asked her for some specifics. You were on that ship for four years and you sent all of four coms in your time there. Your CO described you as 'self-sufficient' and 'quiet' in every performance review, which is a nice way of saying you're a loner who didn't mesh with your unit."

It should bother her, the invasion or the bald truths, but Carla finds herself nodding along.

"Most of the people working here have similar comments in their service jackets. Well, except Roque and Jenny, but their performance reviews tended to recommend BCDs and venting them into space," Clay waves a hand absently in the air, "what I'm trying to say is that, if you wanted, we could use you here."

"Here?" Carla looks around the hallway, the mismatched bulkheads and the flickering lights. 

Clay shrugs. "It's an offer. Besides, you have six weeks before we can get a shuttle out here to pick you up, so why not take some time and think it over."

_We're a great ship!_ Jenny's voice crackles happily through the ship's com.

Clay sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Jenny," she growls in warning, "what have I said-"

_This has been a ship-wide broadcast intended to improve morale, and totally not me listening in on a specific conversation and abusing my access to the ship's core systems,_ Jenny continues brightly.

Clay grimaces, "But I'd understand if you wanted to go back-"

"I'll think about it," Carla says, feeling as surprised as Clay looks.

_Hell yeah! You're gonna love it here!_ Jenny's voice exclaims.

Carla finds herself believing her.

**Author's Note:**

> Was previously posted, then taken down. Now it's back up. Beware the errors and typos, I suspect the files I found on my old hard drive are the pre-beta versions.  
Please don't steal any of my silly stories and change some names around and then try to sell them as books on Amazon or I'm gonna have to take everything down again.


End file.
